Russian member organisation fined as ‘foreign agent’

Under the infamous 2012 law, any organisation engaging in ‘political activity’ and who receives funds from abroad must register as a ‘foreign agent’ with the Russian Ministry of Justice.

At a court hearing yesterday (Thursday 5 March 2015), Maximum was found guilty of failure to register by the Court of Murmansk and fined 300,000 rubles (approx. 4600 euro).

This fine followed unilateral registration of the organisation in the ‘foreign agent’ NGOs list by the Ministry of Justice earlier in February. The organisation had refused to register as they feel that being labelled a ‘foreign agent’ discredits the work carried out by their employees, volunteers and by other NGO’s.